"Will Miss Phipps talk to me again to-morrow? Will she be cross again? Will Mademoiselle be cross?" cried Pixie fearfully. "Oh, what will I do? What will I do? No one was ever cross with me at home. I'll run away in the night and swim over to Ireland. They'd welcome me there if I'd smashed all the scent-bottles in the world. I never meant to do any harm. I didn't know it was wrong to go into Mademoiselle's room. No one ever said I mustn't. Molly, our maid, broke something every day of her life at Bally William, and no one disturbed themselves about it. What's a scent-bottle? Suppose I _had_ broken it, why should they make such a storm, I should like to know?" Her sentences were broken by sobs and tears, and her companions had learnt by now that Pixie's outbursts of grief were not to be trifled with, for while other girls shed tears in a quiet and ladylike manner, Pixie grew hysterical on the slightest pretext, and sobbed, and wailed, and shivered, and shook, and drowned herself in tears until she was in a condition of real physical collapse. To-night Kate signalled imperiously to Flora to depart to her own cubicle, and herself bundled the shaking, quivering little creature into bed, where she left her with a "good-night" sufficiently sympathetic, but--oh, agonies to a sensitive heart!--without attempting the kiss which had become a nightly institution! Next morning Pixie's face was still swollen and puffy, but her elastic spirits had sufficiently recovered to enable her to make repeated attempts to converse with her taciturn companions, and to run in and out of their cubicles to play lady's-maid as usual, in such useful, unostentatious ways as carrying water, folding nightgowns, and tying hair ribbons. This morning she was even more assiduous than usual in her attentions, for there was an edge of coldness and reserve in the manner even of Flora herself which cut deeply into the sensitive heart. Then when she had fully dressed, she gathered together Lottie's fineries and betook herself to the room which that luxurious young lady occupied in solitary splendour.